Jalandhar West bypoll: Filing of nomination papers start today, parties in huddle to zero in on their picks
Notification for Jalandhar West bypoll on Friday, parties gear up for candidate selection. AAP, BJP, Congress face leadership crisis in key electoral battle.
With the notification for the Jalandhar West (reserved) assembly segment going to be issued on Friday, the political parties have started brainstorming for the selection of respective candidates for the key electoral battle, just weeks after the Lok Sabha elections.
The nomination process will start from Friday onwards till June 21 and the polling will be held on July 10. The result will be declared on July 13.
The bypoll was necessitated after sitting AAP MP from Jalandhar West constituency Sheetal Angural resigned from his legislative membership after he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) before the Parliamentary elections on March 28. His resignation was accepted by speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan on May 30.
The byelection is going to be a prestige battle for all the parties. The incumbent AAP is looking for a suitable candidate to retain its seat, while the BJP will go all out to dominate in the SC reserved constituency. Challenges galore for both the Congress and AAP, as far as candidate selection is concerned, as both the parties are facing a leadership crisis in the constituency.
Even though Congress’ Charanjit Singh Channi defeated BJP’s Sushil Kumar Rinku to win the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency on June 4 by a record margin of 1.75 lakh votes, the former CM got a meagre lead of 1,557 votes over his rival in this assembly segment.
Both, Angural and Rinku, who recently lost the LS elections from the Jalandhar seat, had been calling the shots for AAP from Jalandhar West. The duo jumped over to the BJP before the Lok Sabha polls. Rinku remained Congress MLA from Jalandhar West from 2017-22, while lost assembly elections to then AAP nominee Sheetal Angural by 4,253 votes in 2022.
Bajwa, Channi meet local leaders
Congress senior leaders are camping in Jalandhar with Leader of Opposition (LoP) Partap Singh Bajwa and newly elected MP Charanjit Singh Channi holding a detailed meeting with the party workers and six councillors from the segment late at night on Wednesday.
“We held discussions on the name of the candidate, who is going to be finalised by the party high command. Multiple people, including municipal councillors, have shown interest in contesting elections but the ticket will be given only on merit and winnability factor,” Channi said after the meeting.
BJP chalks out strategy
Even the BJP leadership sat together to chalk out a strategy for the bypoll.
“The Jalandhar West election came as a surprise as the leaders were expecting it after 3-4 months. However, we have several options for the selection of a suitable candidate. The political parties are left with minimal time for declaring candidates and preparing poll strategy,” said a senior BJP leader. Sources within the saffron party said the name of Angural and Sunita Rinku, wife of Sushil Rinku, is among the top contenders.
AAP zeros in on its pick
On the other hand, chief minister Bhagwant Mann has already instructed AAP cadre and leaders to gear up for the elections. It is learnt that Mann, during his meeting with party supremo and Delhi minister Arvind Kejriwal in Tihar Jail, discussed the candidate selection from Jalandhar West. It is learnt that AAP’s halqa incharge Mohinder Bhagat, who joined AAP after snapping ties with BJP, along with Robin Sampla, a relative of senior BJP leader Vijay Sampla, are among the contenders.
The Shiromani Akali Dal, which contested the 2022 assembly polls in alliance with BSP, polled only 4,125 votes.